Mobility and the Connected City

Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

Stephen Goldsmith and Matt Leger

February 2020

Stephen Goldsmith and Matt Leger

February 2020

Mobility and the Connected City

Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

iii

about the authors

Stephen Goldsmith is the Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and

the director of the Innovations in American Government Program at Harvard Kennedy

School. He currently directs Data-Smart City Solutions, a project to highlight local gov-

ernment efforts to use new technologies that connect breakthroughs in the use of big

data analytics with community input to reshape the relationship between government

and citizen. He previously served as deputy mayor of New York and mayor of Indianap-

olis, where he earned a reputation as one of the country’s leaders in public-private

partnerships, competition, and privatization. Stephen was also the chief domestic

policy advisor to the George W. Bush campaign in 2000, the chair of the Corporation

for National and Community Service, and the district attorney for Marion County, Indi-

ana from 1979 to 1990. He has written The Power of Social Innovation; Governing by

Network: the New Shape of the Public Sector; Putting Faith in Neighborhoods: Making

Cities Work through Grassroots Citizenship; The Twenty-First Century City: Resurrecting

Urban America; The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Gov-

ernance; and, most recently, A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative, and

Distributed Governance.

Matt Leger is a research assistant for the Innovations in Government Program at Har-

vard Kennedy School’s Ash Center. He has diverse experience in research across the

public and private sectors, as well as in academia, with a primary focus on under-

standing how technology can be used to help address some of society’s greatest chal-

lenges. Matt has worked with the Smart Cities Strategies team at International Data

Corporation (IDC), the NYCx team in the New York City Mayor’s Office of the Chief Tech-

nology Officer, and at the research institute CTG-UAlbany. He holds a Bachelor of Arts

in Public Policy and a master’s degree in Public Administration, both from the Nelson

A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany in Albany,

New York.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

iv

about the ash center

The Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation advances

excellence and innovation in governance and public policy through research, edu-

cation, and public discussion. By training the very best leaders, developing power-

ful new ideas, and disseminating innovative solutions and institutional reforms, the

Center’s goal is to meet the profound challenges facing the world’s citizens. The Ford

Foundation is a founding donor of the Center. Additional information about the Ash

Center is available at ash.harvard.edu.

This research paper is one in a series published by the Ash Center for Democratic

Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Gov-

ernment. The views expressed in the Ash Center Policy Briefs Series are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the John F. Kennedy School of Govern-

ment or of Harvard University. The papers in this series are intended to elicit feedback

and to encourage debate on important public policy challenges.

acknowledgments

Financial support for this paper was generously provided by the John S. and James L.

Knight Foundation, which played no role in shaping the findings presented.

This paper is copyrighted by the author(s). It cannot be reproduced or reused without permission. Pur-

suant to the Ash Center’s Open Access Policy, this paper is available to the public at ash.harvard.edu

free of charge.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

contents

Executive Summary 1

Introduction 1

The Role of Government: Regulatory Levers for Managing a Mobility Marketplace 6

Public-Private Partnerships: A Unified Vision for Connected Mobility 12

Conclusion 17

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

1

executive summary

As new innovations in mobility have entered the marketplace, local government lead-

ers have struggled to adapt their regulatory framework to adequately address new

challenges or the needs of the consumers of these new services. The good news is

that the technology driving this rapid change also provides the means for regulating

it: real-time data. It is the responsibility of cities to establish rules and incentives that

ensure proper behavior on the part of mobility providers while steering service deliv-

ery towards creating better public outcomes. Cities must use the levers at their dis-

posal to ensure an equitable mobility marketplace and utilize real-time data sharing

to enforce compliance. These include investing in and leveraging physical and digital

infrastructure, regulating and licensing business conducted in public space, estab-

lishing and enforcing rules around public safety, rethinking zoning and land use plan-

ning to be transit-oriented, and regulating the digital realm to protect data integrity.

introduction

Over the last decade, public officials and mobility advocates have increasingly pursued

the goals of “connected mobility”: to build an ‘on-demand’ set of transportation options

that brings together the best of transit, bikes, shared cars, scooters, and other modes to

reduce congestion, improve air quality, and increase equitable access to transportation.1

To date, however, local officials have struggled to apply existing planning and

regulatory approaches to new disruptive mobility solutions like ride-sharing and dock-

less scooters. As discussed in the first piece of this series, “Prioritizing Public Value in

the Changing Mobility Landscape,”2 local governments have faced challenges in their

1 Shannon Bouton, Eric Hannon, Stefan Knupfer, and Surya Ramkumar, “The Future(s) of Mobility: How Cities

Can Benefit,” McKinsey & Co., June 2017, https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our

-insights/the-futures-of-mobility-how-cities-can-benefit.

2 Stephen Goldsmith and Betsy Gardner, “Mobility and the Connected City: Prioritizing Public Value in the Chang-

ing Mobility Landscape” (policy brief, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy

School, January 2020), https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/ash_mobility_goldsmith_gardner_final_.pdf.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

2

attempt to manage shifts in urban landscapes, consumer choices, and technologies

that have impacted mobility. These issues include:

1. The Impact of Connectivity on Mobility

Connectivity has affected both the supply of and demand for transit solutions. Ubiq-

uitous mobile devices, coupled with social media platforms, IoT deployment, 4G and

5G internet speeds, transportation network companies, other shared vehicles, and

advanced analytics have put stresses on antiquated city operating systems.

2. Return to Cities, Gentrification; Movement Away from Jobs

As companies move their jobs into cities to be closer to a larger talent pool, suburban

low-wage workers face even longer commutes. This has led to an increase in demand

for better public transit and micromobility, as well as last-mile solutions to ease com-

mutes for workers.

3. E-Commerce and Delivery

The explosion of e-commerce and the emergence of new delivery systems such as

Uber Eats and grocery delivery have significantly disrupted mobility in recent years;

so much so, in fact, that a New York Times analysis found that households in New York

City “now receive more shipments than businesses.”3 This delivery economy presents

major implications for residential areas that were not designed for truck traffic and are

absent loading zones for commercial activity.

4. Effect of Digital Maps

We take them for granted now, but the dependency on digital maps has arguably had

a greater impact than any other single factor on transit behaviors. These digital twins

of a city’s infrastructure control where people drive, route trucks, and even walk.

Commuters are now dependent on apps like Waze, which uses crowdsourcing to com-

municate road conditions among drivers to help them navigate through cities, and

yet the private-sector entities that are responsible for maintaining these maps have

been able to operate with little to no oversight. As a consequence, contributors to the

3 Matt Haag and Winnie Hu, “1.5 Million Packages a Day: The Internet Brings Chaos to NY Streets,” New York

Times, October 27, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/nyregion/nyc-amazon-delivery.html.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

3

Waze platform sometimes incorporate inaccurate or intentionally misreported road

closures, which have had a significant impact on traffic conditions.4

5. Recognition of High Cost of Parking and the Value of the Curb

New mobility solutions are changing how much parking one needs and are also turn-

ing commercial curb space from a liability to be maintained to an asset to be managed.

Ride-share cars do not typically need parking, but they do need curb space to load and

unload passengers. Docked bike-share systems, and dockless bikes and scooters,

meanwhile, utilize space on sidewalks. These changes are forcing cities to completely

rethink curb planning and regulations.

Connected mobility solutions and the real-time analytics capabilities they pres-

ent provide a whole new set of opportunities for local government. The factors set

out above, coupled with the current lack of equitable and sustainable transit options,

provide the mandate for change and the tools with which to manage that change.

The Challenge: 19th-Century Regulatory Frameworks Meet 21st-Century Options

Public officials taking on the job of configuring and regulating transit face daunting

obstacles. They need to see the future and regulate in a dynamic way, while at the

same time harvesting the benefits of what technology promises and restricting the

dangers and abuses it can engender.

For too long, municipal government regulated transit with multiple, siloed

agencies using insufficient and fragmented data, with a focus too often on the ven-

dor (taxi owners) and not the rider (urban residents). The ostensible purpose of regu-

lation—to protect public health and safety—often became coopted by the regulated

companies who used those goals as an excuse to erect barriers to entry to others

(e.g., limiting medallions).

Local leaders have begun to experiment with different forms of regulation in

recent years, but for the most part, government regulations—crafted decades ago in

many cases—have not been designed to account for connected mobility options or

4 Jonathan Littman, “Waze Hijacked LA in the Name of Convenience. Can Anyone Put the Genie Back in the

Bottle,” Los Angeles Magazine, August 20, 2019, https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/waze-los-angeles

-neighborhoods/.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

4

their impacts on urban life. So as cities work to curb the negative externalities of new

mobility options like ride share (e.g., increased traffic congestion), officials fall back

on traditional regulations that are often agency- or mode-specific (e.g., placing caps

on vehicles), often arguing for or relying disproportionately on expensive and bureau-

cratic forms of compliance like reporting. As a result, cities react too slowly, preoccu-

pied with managing transit suppliers and ultimately bypassing the larger network and

system opportunities; this negatively impacts residents in terms of reduced competi-

tion, limited access, and increased transportation costs measured in time and money.

To realize the benefits of connected mobility, cities must think more broadly about

their regulatory framework, repositioning to focus on the end users of these emerging

mobility options (i.e., city residents), while ensuring a competitive, non-oligopolistic

marketplace. However, there has been insufficient collaboration among cities and

mobility service providers concerning the balance between legitimate oversight and

aggressive expansion of transit opportunities. For cities, some key questions remain

unanswered around how such a ‘marketplace for mobility’ would be managed in prac-

tice, and around how they can transition from serving as builders and maintainers

of infrastructure or operators of transit, to establishing the rules, regulations, and

incentives that allow connected mobility marketplaces that are responsive to resi-

dents to flourish. In addition, city officials need to find the right balance that helps

them respond quickly to the illegal actions of commercial transportation providers

that utilize publicly maintained rights-of-way without compliance, without restricting

the creativity and innovation of companies with new solutions.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

5

The Opportunity: Data-Driven Regulation and Enforcement

The normal regulatory process for the last century involved identifying a public safety

issue, holding hearings, and establishing rules (while rarely altering the basic foun-

dational rules that were in place already). Identifying noncompliance was largely

dependent on the observations of a safety officer or citizen. Today, new opportunities

exist as the same technology breakthroughs that prove so disruptive to the urban

transportation market also provide to public officials the tools necessary for proper

enforcement. Data is the new regulatory currency involving such things as ride share,

e-scooters, and dockless bikes. The data produced allows government to evaluate

utilization, access, equity, proper parking locations, and more in real time and without

human intervention. As city residents increase their dependence on these services,

cities must leverage the data to develop new regulatory frameworks that encourage

usage, while also steering connected mobility providers to develop business models

invested in generating better public outcomes.

The expansion of IoT data sources, so long as they are accompanied by appropri-

ate data privacy protections, furthers a broad range of enforcement reforms. Instead

of requiring observation by an enforcement agent, data allows fees and fines to be

levied based on locational data and IoT sensors. In this expanded enforcement frame-

work, a scooter dropped in the wrong place or a TNC (transportation network com-

pany) driver caught on camera running a red light or endangering a pedestrian can

trigger a fee automatically.

The bottom line is that connected mobility ecosystems, when leveraged and

managed effectively by cities, produce cross-agency and public-private collaboration

that enable cities to move from static, single-agency or -use regulation to a dynamic

regulatory system that allows for modifications and enforcement of rules and regula-

tions in real time. The availability of high-quality real-time data cascades through the

many options available to the public.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

6

the role of government: regulatory levers for managing a mobility marketplace

Codified in city charters, state constitutions, and laws across the United States is

the fundamental responsibility of cities and public entities to ensure safe passage

on rights-of-way to protect public health, safety and welfare—and to govern com-

merce in the public right-of-way. Typically applied to commercial vehicles—e.g.,

“No Trucks Allowed”—this authority could be expanded to include the regulation of

other for-hire vehicles.

In addition to the shaping of public values around connected mobility, govern-

ment takes on other roles as it seeks ensure that the mobility marketplace operates

correctly. As noted by Seleta Reynolds, general manager of the Los Angeles Depart-

ment of Transportation, the role of government is to take the lead on planning and

investing in infrastructure with an emphasis on ensuring competitiveness in the mar-

ketplace and equity in transportation. She noted that government must “put rules

in place to prevent walled gardens or monopolies . . . and ensure that there is some

public accountability once people grow dependent on those services.”5 She went on

to assert that government must regulate and enforce rules around safety and account-

ability, and that data was key to fulfilling these roles.

For government to succeed in these areas, it must establish and enforce incen-

tives that encourage responsible behavior on the parts of both the connected mobility

providers and the consumers of such services. Keith Chen, Professor of Behavioral

Economics at UCLA, reinforced this point, saying, “city managers . . . have to put the

right incentives in place for mobility providers so that they behave responsibly rather

than just pursue profits.”6 Governmental authorities can explicitly adapt a broad range

of regulatory levers to more effectively manage connected mobility marketplaces

while at the same time leveraging the data from these modes to inform public service

5 Betsy Gardner, “Moving Beyond Mobility as a Service: Interview with Seleta Reynolds,” Data-Smart City

Solutions, December 18, 2019, https://datasmart.ash.harvard.edu/news/article/moving-beyond-mobility

-service-interview-seleta-reynolds-0.

6 Keith Chen (professor of Behavioral Economics, UCLA), in telephone interview with Betsy Gardner, November

12, 2019.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

7

delivery and improve public outcomes (e.g., using trip data from dockless scooters to

inform bus route planning and improve transit access).

Investing in Physical and Digital Infrastructure

Beyond regulating mobility providers to ensure that the public benefits from their ser-

vices and the benefits they yield, government has a huge role to play in ensuring public

infrastructure is built to further bolster those benefits. This includes programs such as

Complete Streets and Vision Zero, which are designed to build roads and sidewalks in

a way that ensures that streets are safe and accessible to everyone, regardless of their

mode of travel. For solutions such as bike and scooter shares, protected bike lanes

and dedicated parking (and no parking) zones are necessary for their safe and effi-

cient use and the prevention of negative externalities from their use such as blocked

sidewalks and illegal parking or dumping. To avoid leaning entirely on taxpayer money

to build out this infrastructure, cities can leverage their infrastructure in negotiations

with mobility providers to develop a revenue sharing agreement, where revenue from

each individual ride can be shared with the city in exchange for helping build out the

infrastructure that mobility providers need to facilitate and scale their solutions.

In addition to physical infrastructure like streets and sidewalks, government

must also invest in digital infrastructure like mobile apps to help integrate these solu-

tions in a way that builds a holistic transit network for all residents. For example, as

discussed later in this report, cities across the country are working with public and

private mobility providers in their cities to integrate all modes into a single app so that

residents can streamline their travel options and pay on one platform with a single

account. These efforts are critical to ensuring all residents have access to these modes

of transportation and that all mobility solutions are utilized to their full potential.

Regulating and Licensing

To date, much of the new regulatory controversy has focused on the battle between

incumbent mobility providers (e.g., taxis) and new mobility providers (e.g., TNCs). In

many cities, these battles involve a TNC or micromobility provider ignoring or attempt-

ing to circumvent local law in order to scale more quickly, and an incumbent taxi service

claiming that new mobility providers have an unfair market advantage due to lack of

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

8

regulation and oversight.7 New mobility providers ultimately complain that the regula-

tors appear more interested in protecting incumbent providers than in helping consum-

ers, and incumbent providers claim that the local government is failing to enforce the

same rules that they have been required to operate under for decades. This has led to

introduction of rules and regulations that attempt to address the concerns of these two

sets of parties, rather than the end users of the services that need them most.

In this paper, we argue that government needs to embrace new mobility solu-

tions but that it should also have a right to regulate as long as the companies depend

on taxpayer-funded infrastructure like streets, curb space, and sidewalks. This regu-

latory approach includes reasonable conditions on the exchange of data; however, we

do not explicitly advocate for specific types, categories, or forms of data, as jurisdic-

tions could define their data requirements in differing ways according to their unique

purposes and community.

Although mobility transactions are completed through an app, the provision of

services occurs on public streets. Government’s obligation to protect public health

and safety, and to provide services to those without access to a car, gives it the gen-

eral authority as spelled out by state law to condition the use of its streets. Unlike

older forms of regulation, these efforts should be nuanced; for example, caps on

the number of vehicles should depend on factors such as the level of utilization and

time of the year (i.e., seasonal caps), and caps should fluctuate with compliance with

these regulations. Additionally, vehicle safety efforts should be complemented and

informed by sensor data and customer reports of safety concerns.

Some of the public’s goals can be accomplished through simple rulemaking,

such as not allowing taxis to be driven with faulty exhaust systems or brakes or letting

TNC drivers drop off passengers in the middle of the street. Other goals require a more

comprehensive licensing regime—for instance, those that require real-time data feeds

to regulators. In addition, an evolving set of questions, first devised in Indianapolis

for regulatory review purposes, can help city leaders assess new modes of regulating

mobility marketplaces:

7 Miranda Katz, “Why Are New York Taxi Drivers Killing Themselves?” Wired, March 28, 2018, https://www.wired

.com/story/why-are-new-york-taxi-drivers-committing-suicide/.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

9

• How and why is a restriction on a transaction or a business imposed?

• How can regulations be as simple, fair, and enforceable as possible?

• Is the cost of regulation greater than the benefit it creates for the community?

• How are existing regulations assessed or evaluated for continued relevance?

• Is existing regulation lacking or excessive in some manner?

• Do regulations increase quality of life and provide public value?8

These questions keep the focus on the benefit to the public, helping avoid the

risk of preemption by any one vendor.

Public Safety

Most major cities participate in Vision Zero to bolster street safety efforts based on

“the ethical belief that everyone has the right to move safely in their communities,

and that system designers and policy makers share the responsibility to ensure safe

systems for travel.”9 Despite the substantial gains from these initiatives, too rarely do

local officials working on these programs address the basic safety questions around

scooters dropped on sidewalks, and TNCs and delivery trucks double-parked in con-

gested traffic lanes.

Compliance with safety rules can be secured through basic mechanisms like traf-

fic fines, of course, but also through pricing that encourages better behavior from pro-

viders and users alike. For example, how small vehicles are parked on public property

falls under public health and safety, and dockless scooters and bikes are at the fore-

front of this debate. If commercial companies utilize public sidewalks and streets, like

bike and scooter share companies do, then public officials have the right to set rules

around where the vehicles stop or park. While cities can utilize designated drop-off and

pick-up zones, institute curbside management rules and technologies, and enforce

lane violations (e.g., fining a driver of a commuter vehicle for using a bus/bike lane to

cut through traffic) with traffic cameras and police enforcement, these approaches are

dependent on local government enforcement. Instead, city leaders should be working

8 “Origination of a Regulation,” Data-Smart City Solutions, February 18, 2015, https://datasmart.ash.harvard

.edu/news/article/origination-of-a-regulation-598.

9 “What is Vision Zero?,” Vision Zero Network, https://visionzeronetwork.org/about/what-is-vision-zero/.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

10

alongside mobility providers to leverage location and ride data to enforce these rules.

For example, scooter companies currently require riders to take a picture of their park-

ing job when they have completed their trip to ensure they are parked properly. How-

ever, this method is mostly used as a social tool to encourage better behavior on the

part of users and is not currently used to enforce parking rules. As noted by Professor

Chen of UCLA, local leaders should work to incentivize scooter providers to spur the

adoption of tools like artificial intelligence that can identify improper parking jobs and

flag them so the company can levy a fine on that user.

Zoning and Land-Use Planning

In this paper, we do not argue for a defined set of regulatory solutions but rather we

maintain that cities have a broad array of tools and interconnected levers already

in place that they can utilize to manage new forms of transportation. For example,

land-use planning and curb management can be viewed as different doors into a com-

mon area. Through land-use planning, one can see the critical role that sidewalks,

curbs, and roads play in the life of the community and how planning needs to address

these uses as new mobility solutions disrupt everyday life. Alternatively, a transporta-

tion engineer considering new parking and road diet designs for use by micromobility

solutions will soon find themselves affecting the feasible use of the land.

Additionally, zoning that encourages transit-oriented development will reduce

the amount of parking required of a real estate developer but increase the TNC

drop-off zones in the area as the best use of the curb. Traditionally, cities have insti-

tuted fixed ratios of parking to numbers of new units, bedrooms, or spaces per lin-

ear feet of curb on developers looking to build housing units in a city; however, this

method presents an obsolete, slow-to-adapt process that is incapable of keeping up

with modern changes in mobility. Alternatively, establishing rules that allow for the

constant reallocation of curbside usage, and charging fees for those uses, allow for

a more dynamic way of managing changes in mobility marketplaces. Unlike previous

planning efforts that set specific parking zones and fees, newer curb management

models that use dynamic pricing and decision-making will make the most of scarce

urban infrastructure.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

11

Regulating the Digital Realm

Whether they are guiding a commuter away from traffic on the way to work, directing a

TNC driver on the best way to a drop-off destination, or supporting the sophisticated

logistics of a delivery truck route, digital maps control the flow of traffic in cities today.

While maps can be very powerful tools for moving people around, there can be neg-

ative consequences for their widespread use. Los Angeles city council member David

Ryu has been pushing the city to pursue legal action against Waze for several years,

citing that the app directs vehicles through residential neighborhoods in his district,

which are now overrun by rush hour traffic, damaging street infrastructure,10 while

others insist that individuals hack into Waze to intentionally mischaracterize a road as

closed11 to prevent the very use about which Ryu complains.

To the authors, these two scenarios differ in that the former takes advantage

of private information to suggest better routes for cars. In the latter, someone is

intentionally putting out misleading information. We include this challenge under the

section on levers government must take control of in mobility marketplaces to draw

attention to the parameters for such services. After all, a Waze notification of a road

closure or of a quick detour around congestion has far more influence today over the

flow of traffic than any road sign or smart traffic light that cities are utilizing.

Example: Using Levers to Advance Transit Equity Goals

We can see how these various levers can be combined to advance public policy goals.

For example, most major cities are working to address major inequities in access to

public services, particularly around public transit. Long commute times disproportion-

ately punish low-wage workers who either do not have personal vehicles or who are

forced to live far outside of cities due to their high cost of living. However, when new

mobility services like those for scooters, bikes, and cars are introduced, they often

predominantly go to upscale communities with more disposable income rather than to

neighborhoods that need these solutions most, like those just mentioned.

10 City of Los Angeles, “Councilmember Ryu Calls on City of Los Angeles to Consider Legal Action Against Waze,”

news release, April 17, 2018, http://davidryu.lacity.org/press_release_waze.

11 Jonathan Littman, “Waze Hijacked LA in the Name of Convenience. Can Anyone Put the Genie Back in the

Bottle,” Los Angeles Magazine, August 20, 2019, https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/waze-los-angeles

-neighborhoods/.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

12

To combat this, city officials could require a fairer distribution of scooters as

a condition of operating in the city, and they can monitor their location in real time

through GPS data sharing. To ensure compliance, Professor Chen explains that cities

must utilize what he calls “smart caps” and also find the right incentives.12 For exam-

ple, cities can institute various charges or discounts when scooter providers comply

with equitable service delivery. This is exactly what Detroit’s Smart Mobility Strategist

Justin Snowden and the city’s Office of Mobility Innovation have sought to do in their

pilot program with scooter companies. As a condition of earning and maintaining an

operating license, Detroit is working with scooter providers to ensure residents out-

side of the downtown area have access by requiring a 70/30 split: 70 percent of scoot-

ers can operate in the downtown area, while 30 percent must go to the outer areas of

the city, with an emphasis on placing scooters in areas underserved by public transit.

In exchange for compliance, scooter providers receive a higher fleet cap.

City officials can set aside capital dollars to provide safe, well-lit and dry areas

to park shared vehicles or to let out TNC passengers near transit locations. Similarly,

just as housing planners have allowed developers to construct larger buildings with

more units if they also yield an increase in affordable units, here, planners can work

hand in hand with transportation and community advisors to reward service that is

more equitable.

public-private partnerships: a unified vision for connected mobility

Connected mobility needs definitions. A TNC or scooter company providing rides in

a city is not a partner of the city; rather it occupies the place of regulated industry.

When the city chooses a parking app that it authorizes motorists to use, and nego-

tiates a contract with terms and conditions, that is a public-private partnership (P3).

Cities negotiate arrangements with entities that occupy both categories; an example

12 Betsy Gardner, “Beyond Carrots and Sticks: Behaviorally-Smart Approaches to Micro-Mobility,” Data-Smart City

Solutions, December 12, 2019, https://datasmart.ash.harvard.edu/news/article/beyond-carrots-and-sticks

-behaviorally-smart-approaches-micro-mobility.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

13

is Via, a company that both provides commercial services and contracts with cities to

manage rides.

What complicates the P3 framework for cities with respect to connected mobility

is the need for planning and regulation that strings together intentional, contracted P3s

and regulated commercial interests in a fashion that accomplishes the broader public

values discussed above. As cities look to regulate and manage connected mobility mar-

ketplaces, they need to clearly define the goals they wish to achieve (e.g., sustainability,

transportation equity) and how they can align those goals with those of the mobility

providers while also supporting the needs of residents that use the services.

The following are three major areas where connected mobility providers and local

governments can work together to create mutually beneficial outcomes.

1. Mobility Data Sharing and Real-Time Analytics

Shared data is the gold of connected mobility. Utilizing the authority of the city to

require data sharing as a condition of operating in the city supports improved

data-driven policy and decision-making on the parts of the city and the mobility pro-

vider. In outlining data-sharing requirements, however, it is important that cities are

cognizant of data privacy and protection for end users, and that only the data that

is absolutely necessary for planning purposes is required by the agreement. The fol-

lowing is an example of how New York City leveraged mobility data sharing in their

negotiations with Lyft in 2014 to improve transportation outcomes for residents and

enforce rules and regulations.

In 2006, Mayor Bloomberg required all taxis in New York City be equipped with

GPS so that the city could oversee how taxi services were being utilized. Equipping all

taxis with GPS allowed the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) to analyze data

on pick-up and drop-off locations, fares, taxi numbers, and time stamps, and also

allowed them to monitor vehicle locations every 30 seconds. This gave the DOT the

opportunity to monitor traffic speeds and congestion, as well as alter signal timing

to help keep traffic flowing.13 Beyond traffic, former commissioner of NYC’s Taxi and

13 Stefanie Le, “How NYC Learned to Stop Worrying about Ride-Hailing Services and Utilize Data,” Data-Smart

City Solutions, November 25, 2019, https://datasmart.ash.harvard.edu/news/article/how-nyc-learned-stop

-worrying-about-ride-hailing-services-and-utilize-data.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

14

Limousine Commission (TLC) Meera Joshi acknowledged that the data also helped

improve pay for drivers by setting caps and fares based on demand. In addition, the

data proved invaluable in making the case that the yellow cabs barely served bor-

oughs outside of Manhattan, which was critical in the debate concerning adding outer

borough green cabs in 2012.

When ride-share companies entered the NYC market, city officials already had

a data standard in place and understood the critical value of ride-hailing data. When

Lyft first tried to enter the market in July 2014, it sought to circumvent TLC rules that

required all drivers for ride-hailing services be vetted by TLC.14 The ride-share company

also wanted to deploy as many vehicles as possible and they wanted their drivers to

be able to drive at their leisure—a standard that the incumbent ride-hailing services

vehemently opposed. In exchange for the ability to let Lyft drivers work flexibly, the TLC

asked that Lyft share with it data about trips taken using their services so that they could

monitor usage while also providing a tool for accountability and safety. For example, the

city used red light cameras to take pictures of the license plates of vehicles that ran red

lights and required that Lyft share drivers’ contact information to facilitate collecting

penalties. They also set caps on the number of hours drivers could ride with a passenger

on board to cut down on fatigue, and penalized drivers who went over the limit.15

As providers continue to proliferate and data-mining tools get more sophisti-

cated, the importance of data sharing will only increase, as will the number of chal-

lenges. Here are just a few of the many questions city leaders will have to answer:

• How can enough locational data be shared in a way that is meaningful with-

out violating the privacy of consumers, and how can the parties protect

against reidentification?

• How can cities protect the legitimate proprietary interests of a private com-

pany when a competitor can in most cases make a freedom of information

request for a competitor’s data?

14 Christine Lagorio-Chafkin, “Lyft in New York City: Let’s Try This One More Time,” Inc., July 25, 2014. https://www

.inc.com/christine-lagorio/lyft-another-nyc-launch-attempt.html.

15 Stefanie Le, “How NYC Learned to Stop Worrying about Ride-Hailing Services and Utilize Data,” Data-Smart

City Solutions, November 25, 2019, https://datasmart.ash.harvard.edu/news/article/how-nyc-learned

-stop-worrying-about-ride-hailing-services-and-utilize-data.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

15

• How does a city provide an API or platform layer against which any commercial

user of the curb or sidewalk can secure real-time information on pricing and

availability?

• What health and safety verification information should the city demand ven-

dors produce to prove compliance with regulations?

2. Public Engagement and Business Model Alignment

While connected mobility companies, like all other private-sector companies, are

under no obligation to serve the public’s interest in terms of addressing public issues

like transportation inequity, many of them want to do so if they can still maintain a

business model that ensures profitability. At the same time, cities have much to gain

from the addition of connected mobility solutions but must not forget the needs and

concerns of residents as they look to allow connected mobility solutions onto pub-

lic streets. Achieving this goal requires that companies and local governments gain

a better understanding of the public’s needs. Finding an agreed upon solution that

addresses everyone’s concerns requires engaging with the public directly.

As several scooter-share companies moved to enter the market in Detroit, Jus-

tin Snowden wanted to ensure that the companies shared the city’s concerns about

equitable service delivery. In understanding that “transit equity” and “equal access”

can mean different things to different people, Snowden emphasized the importance

of “diligent customer discovery” where the city and mobility providers must “engage

with residents to understand their needs and then translate those needs to outcomes

that benefit them.” Snowden set up a roundtable discussion among residents and the

scooter providers to ensure the residents’ concerns were communicated directly to

both the city and the service provider.

Following this engagement, city officials then collaborated with the scooter

providers to help them align their business model with residents’ needs. These dis-

cussions surfaced the significance of overcoming the problems of residents who do

not have access to smartphones with data plans or the credit necessary to pay for

services. To increase access for this demographic, the scooter companies declared

that they would upgrade their system to support alternative payment options and sign

a revenue-sharing agreement in exchange for investments in infrastructure like bike

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

16

lanes. The scooter providers also offered trip data as part of their negotiations for the

right to operate in the city.

As noted by Meera Joshi during the Future of Connected Mobility conference16,

data used for public policy initiatives like ride share must “always be gut-checked

with residents” because “while community meetings can be painful . . . some practical

reality is missing from those data analyses and you miss an opportunity to make good

policy if you don’t combine those two.”

3. Interoperability

In many cities across the US, moving from one mode of public transit to another has

traditionally required separate payments or passes that produce major pain points

for riders, particularly those who rely on public transit to get around or out-of-town

visitors attempting to figure out a new payment system.17 What once seemed like a

breakthrough in the use of a card instead of cash, or an app to pay for parking, now

seems like an obstacle to transportation planning and use. It has become increasingly

imperative for cities in a region and their regional transit entitles to collaborate on

APIs and other protocols necessary to ease the process for the customer and to facili-

tate the exchange of data.

In recent years, several cities across the United States including San Fran-

cisco; Washington, DC; and Los Angeles have announced plans to streamline tran-

sit payments and integrate app solutions. Others, such as Atlanta, have supported

“multi-tenancy” so that drivers can use various authorized applications to pay for

curbside parking. Seleta Reynolds of the Los Angeles DOT believes the next step

is creating a solution that helps commuters map out their entire trips with multi-

modal transit. A more ambitious goal for Reynolds is moving towards an end goal

she coined “Universal Basic Mobility” (UBM) where residents who cannot afford

16 Meera Joshi (outgoing Commissioner, New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission), in discussion at Future of

Connected Mobility Conference, Harvard Kennedy School, October 2019. For more insights from this conference,

see the first paper in this series: “Mobility and the Connected City: Prioritizing Public Value in the Changing

Mobility Landscape,” https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/ash_mobility_goldsmith_gardner_final_.pdf.

17 Matt Blanks and Will Judge, “Inclusive Mobility: Four Insights to Ensure Your City’s Transit Infrastructure Works

for Everyone,” November 2011, City Possible, MasterCard Transit Solutions, https://citypossible.com/wp

-content/uploads/2019/11/Making-Tech-Work-for-People-Inclusive-Mobility.pdf.

mobility and the connected city: Effectively Managing Connected Mobility Marketplaces

17

typical transit fares can gain access to a “mobility wallet” that includes a budget for

different transit options.

conclusion

There are three major changes occurring simultaneously in transportation and mobil-

ity that city leaders are being forced to grapple with: 1) technology is rapidly changing

the way people move around cities; 2) new mobility solutions are proliferating, add-

ing to the breadth and complexity of the mobility marketplace; and 3) on-demand

e-commerce and other delivery services are emerging. While these major changes

occur, people and jobs are moving to cities at greater rates than ever, putting increased

pressure on city operating systems to make large-scale change.

Cities with slow-moving city regulatory systems oriented around traditional

modes of transit struggle to adapt with the major changes listed above. Alternatively,

regulatory systems designed with the consumer or resident at the center, and that

leverage the power of data analytics, will be better equipped to effectively manage a

rapidly changing mobility marketplace. Short-term issues of refereeing one provider

versus another can drown out more important issues such as traffic congestion, sus-

tainability, equity, and access in the face of these arguments, thwarting true progress.

Nevertheless, cities possess new means of regulating these complex marketplaces,

especially when residents are intentionally included both in the planning and in the

evaluating of the quality of service. Cities must rethink how they approach mobility, as

old-school regulatory modes are no longer effective in today’s world.

A publication of the

Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation

Harvard Kennedy School

79 John F. Kennedy Street

Cambridge, MA 02138

617-495-0557

www.ash.harvard.edu